


the gym owner and two ex-spies

by sarka_stically



Series: everyday heroes [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Non-Famous, Alternate Universe - Normal Life, Angst, Gen, Panic Attacks, basically everyone here was or is military of sorts, description of violence, it makes very little sense and im a horrible person, nat and clint are ex CIA, pretty graphic description of dead people, there is angst but its a bad angst and i dont like it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-10
Updated: 2019-07-10
Packaged: 2020-06-25 20:18:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19753105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarka_stically/pseuds/sarka_stically
Summary: steve starts a support group, natasha drinks bad coffee and clint plays sims 3.





	the gym owner and two ex-spies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [badbucky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/badbucky/gifts).



> leya,, ily so much and i'm so sorry it took me so long to write this. i hope you don't hate it.

The first meeting of Steve's veteran support group is only him, Sam and Bucky.  
  
That’s no surprise, after all, Sam and Bucky were the ones who helped him set it all up. Together they cleaned the basement under Steve’s gym and gathered a bunch of dissimilar chairs, setting them in a circle. Sam even tried to bake some cookies (keyword tried).  
  
The first meeting is slightly awkward, just three of them, sitting in a circle, not saying anything since they know each other too well for that.  
  
For their second meeting, they are six. Among other people, Steve convinced his former colleague Natasha to join. She doesn’t say much through the whole meeting. She only drinks Sam's over-sweetened coffee (Note to self – make sure Sam doesn’t make any more coffee), eats Sam's (decent) cookies, and makes snarky remarks from time to time. But she never interrupts any of the newly joined veterans when they talk of war. When those times come, she gets still, hard eyes focused on the speaker. Steve is glad he invited her.  
  
In their third meeting, Rhodey joins. He is a friend of the mechanic across the street and Steve invited him spontaneously, not expecting him to come. Rhodey talks more than Natasha. He doesn't tell his story, but when any of the guys tell theirs, Rhodey asks questions, gives advice and tries to help them as much as he can. It doesn't surprise Steve one bit when in their fourth meeting, six new guys join, saying that Rhodey, their superior officer, told them of the group.  
  
The fifth time they meet, Gamora and Drax join. Steve doesn’t know where they came from. He remembers talking with Gamora once before, but he doesn't know when or why. They both come from different sectors of military, probably different states, judged by Drax's unidentifiable accent. Gamora is even more silent than Natasha, other than her name she doesn’t say a thing through the whole session. When it’s her turn to speak, she just waves her hand in refusal. Steve only sees her talk to Natasha when the meetings are over.  
  
Drax on the other hand, speaks possibly too much. His tales are all mind-blowing cocktails of violence, heroism and revenge. They are all different, but after hearing a few of them Steve is convinced, not all (if any) of them, are real. Everyone must have come up to the same conclusion, but they never interrupt when Drax starts again. There is something else. It's hidden behind the veil of lies and half-truths. He may be trying to tell them, in his own way.  
  
From there nothing much changes, few people come and go, but the core group is the same.  
  
And that bothers Steve a bit more than it should.  
  
...  
  
“So Natasha…” He begins hesitantly while his friend pours herself a coffee. She always seems to be one of the last people leaving after a meeting. Mostly because she had to stop to make herself a coffee and eat a big part of leftover food.  
  
Natasha looks him in the eye.  
  
“Don’t ask Steve, I know what you want.”  
  
“Really?”  
  
“You want me to bring Clint.”  
  
Well, she is not wrong. Damn. Now things got a bit more awkward.  
  
“How did you know?” Steve asks with an awkward chuckle.  
  
“You just told me. And you asked five times already.”  
  
Yes, she could be annoying like that. With a grin, Natasha takes a whole box of cookies and just leaves. Too late Steve realizes she didn’t tell him if she would do it or not.  
  
...  
  
“Steve asked about you again today.” Natasha’s disembodied voice announces.  
  
“Which?” Clint asks, not lifting his eyes from the PS4. He hears her walk to their tiny kitchen, unpacking the groceries.  
  
“Rogers.”   
  
“The All-American man? The blonde wonder? I-never-cursed-ever-in-my-life-and-I-don’t-intend-to man?”  
  
“So, you know who that is?” Natasha states and Clint can physically hear the smirk in her voice.  
  
“A bit. But you know the answer, Nat.”  
  
„You owe me one Clinton.“  
  
“Since when do I-"  
  
“You know why.”  
  
Natasha sits in front of the TV, making it impossible for him to make Little Clint a dinner. Which is only slightly less annoying than what she wants from him.  
  
“Natasha my freaking character will starve because of you.”  
  
“You will _freaking starve_ if I have to hear Steve Rogers ask about you one more time.”  
  
“It's not that bad.”  
  
“It wouldn't be if he asked like a normal person. But the Wonder Man has to walk around it like it’s a landmine and that’s so unbearably annoying I want to stab someone.”  
  
“Natasha don't you-“  
  
“But I WON’T… if you come next week.”  
  
Not like he has any other choice really. He has seen his friend stab people for smaller things.  
  
…  
  
The room is not clean. It’s a dumb stupid observation, but after the time he spent in hospitals of all sorts, attending a therapy session in a dirty ass cellar of a gym is a change. Welcomed one. Clint would take a smell of sweat and dust over antiseptic any day of the week.  
  
An ideal place to start a fight club. That could be considered as a therapy too.  
  
His train of thoughts is interrupted by Natasha kicking him in a shin (rather violently). Everyone's eyes are trained on him. Freaking lovely.  
  
“I'm sorry… what?”  
  
Kudos to Steve _The Blonde Wonder_ Rogers for looking totally jovial about the fact that other than introducing himself half an hour ago, Clint spent the whole session dissociating.

  
“It's your turn dickface.” Natasha mumbles next to him.

  
“I don't really have anything to talk about.” Clint remarks.

  
“How are you feeling?” Steve asks quickly.

  
“Good I guess.”

  
“What have you been up to?”

  
“That's a really vague question but… nothing much.” Steve’s eyes seem to scream _“NOT ENOUGH! NOT ENOUGH! NOT ENOOOUGH!"_ so Clint panics and adds the first thing that comes to his mind. “I started playing Sims 3 yesterday.”

  
Nobody says anything to that cause yeah, that’s a really dumb thing to say in a therapy session. But Mr. Steven Rogers freaking asked so what was Clint supposed to do. Not answer?

  
“I have been playing before but I only like made some characters. You know how you make characters in Sims. That’s fun.”

  
A bulky guy with way too many tattoos sitting across from Clint nods excitedly.

  
“Yesterday I decided to move our relationship to the next level as my dear friend Natasha here suggested.”

  
Clint expects her to pull a knife out of a thin air and stab him with it for that remark. But when did threats of physical violence ever stop him?

  
“So, I made a Sims family and like bought them a nice house by the edge of the Simsville. I have a Clint, like me you know. He is pretty cool. I’m going for secret service career with his one. Then there is Clint Jr., I call him little Clint. He wants to be just like his dad. And then Mama Burton with-“

  
“That’s all very interesting.” Steve interrupts “And did you do anything else you would like to tell us about?”

  
Clint just shrugs.

  
After that the bulky guy takes the word, starting a 15 minutes long tale about his time in Iran.

  
Clint just stares at his hands for the rest of the session. He probably shouldn’t have started his time with this group by Sims 3 rant. Not like much is happening in his life these days.

...  
  
Natasha stays behind again. This time it feels different though. She doesn’t go for snacks and doesn’t chat with Gamora or anyone else. She just sends her friend to go home ahead and stays seated until everyone leaves.

  
“Are you an idiot, Steven?” She says when there are only two of them.

  
“What?”

  
Natasha gets up so swiftly the foldable chair squeaks and almost falls over. She approaches him and even though Natasha is more than feet smaller than him, Steve instinctively takes a step back.

  
“You always go on about how everyone has the right to speak and how this is a safe space. How everyone can talk about anything they want to. We listen to Drax _The Destroyer_ every freaking session. And then you don’t Clint speak THAT ONE TIME he does?”

  
“He was talking about Sims, Natasha.” Steve defends with an awkward chuckle, moving the chairs to one corner like he is not alarmed by an angry five feet tall redhead.

  
“He was talking about a family. It has been MONTHS and he was talking about a family.”

  
“I don’t know what-“

  
“His family is dead. His wife, his three kids. All dead.”

  
“I’m so sorry I didn’t know.” Steve drops the last chair on the floor and just looks at it for a few moments. “Can I ask what happened?”

  
Natasha looks like she just wants to punch him in the face and leave but instead, she answers.

  
“I can’t say any specifics, but the CIA is not as good at keeping secrets as it wants to be. There must have been a leak because they knew everything – his identity, his family, where they lived. One day he left for work and when he came home, they were all dead. Laura, Cooper, Lila and Nate. All of them.”

  
Natasha just looks at him for a while. She doesn’t look angry anymore. That is strange by itself because Natasha Romanoff is very good at being angry. For a second Steve would say she is just sad, but then her expression shifts to a guarded scowl she wears so often.

  
“Clint never talks about them. He is stupid like that. He’d rather spend all the time playing stupid videogames and acting like nothing ever happened. Asshole.”

…

Clint sucks at videogames. He can’t shoot from a bow in there, because their stupid virtual design or whatever makes it impossible for him. He can’t snipe in there for the same reasons. He can’t even shoot people from point-blank range in Fortnite because every shot and every scream makes him flinch. Which always gets him killed.

  
And now he can’t even play stupid Sims 3. There are too many fucking characters and he tries to take care of them, he really does. But everything in this ridiculous stupid Sims world goes too fast. One second everything is ok and then suddenly the house is on fire and those idiotic Sims characters aren’t even capable of leaving the house and the badly animated Death walks in and….

  
Clint is pretty sure he lost it over Sims fucking 3.

  
Because the next thing he knows, he is sitting on the ground. Natasha is hugging him, pretty awkwardly because she like never hugs anyone.

  
She is saying something he can’t understand.

  
His hands are shaking.

  
_They shouldn’t do that_ , Clint’s brain states in a rather annoying matter. _You’re a sniper Clint, your hands shouldn’t be shaking._

  
Why are they doing it anyway? Oh right, there is blood on them. There is blood all around.

  
_No, there is not actually,_ the brain replies. _That was then._

  
Back then, there was blood. So much blood.

  
He can see Nate’s small cold hand. He remembers carrying him as he walks through the house. Like when he was little and fell asleep on the terrace.

  
He remembers Lila and Cooper. He thinks they must be alive because he can’t find them. Lila was always way too good at hide-and-seek. This time they hid in their mother’s dresser. Or what was left of them. He takes them in his arms, holds them, all three of his children. Like that could help anything.

  
He remembers Laura. She is the one he found first, the one he avoided the most. She lies on the kitchen table. He doesn’t want to look in her face, but he can see her dress. It was yellow with small orange flowers when he left in the morning. He knows because Laura loved that dress. It is not now though, the dress is torn in so many places, colored with her blood.

  
Clint may have started screaming, or maybe that’s only in his head. Not like it matters.

  
He feels Natasha’s arms around him as she whispers some nonsense words he can’t hear.

  
She was there back then, and she is here now.


End file.
